Star Racing Supercross Round 9 Race Report

Daytona Beach, FLA. - The AMA Supercross series visited Daytona Motor Speedway and massive crowd last Saturday for round three of East coast Lites championship. DNA Shred Stix/Star Racing /Yamaha fielded a squad of two riders, #25 Ryan Sipes, and rookie #533 Gannon Audette. Like every year, conditions at this race are extremely challenging and everything needs to lineup just right for a great finish. Preliminary action got underway in good fashion as Sipes stood high up in the charts at 5th and Audette clocked the 14th fastest Timed-qualifying lap.

Slated into Heat #1; Audette reeled off a fair start only to go down hard in the first lap. Once back up again, Audette was far from qualifying unfortunately and prepared for the LCQ. Next in line would be Sipes, starting Heat #2 in the front of the field, the contender showed good speed and raced on to a transfer position of 2nd. So in the dreaded LCQ, Audette played it cool in the opening laps holding 4th, but again his luck would run out as just when Gannon put his Yamaha in place to possibly move into the top two, he took yet another soil sample which left him unable to qualify.

When the Main Event took to the track, Sipes and his #25 bike were in the mix sitting in 3rd. Finding his grove, Sipes quickly broke away with the leaders, and found himself in the hunt for a win. At the halfway mark, Ryan began to show his cards as he applied pressure to the second place competitor, and seemed to be adapting well to the ever changing track conditions. Just when the race was coming to the Scott gear backed rider, Sipes lost his wheels in the soft surface, and went down only momentarily. However, he still held onto the 3rd spot, but now had pressure from behind. From there, Sipes put together consistent laps and got back into being in race mode, which carried him to the finish of 3rd comfortably, giving the entire team a well deserved podium finish.